Table of Contents
- About the sources
- What is Kimah? Naming in Berakhot 58b
- Kimah and Kesil: cold and heat
- The Flood: two stars taken from Pleiades (Berakhot 59a)
- Rosh Hashanah 11b-12a: second witness for the two stars
- When Kimah stands overhead (Bava Metzia 106b)
- Scripture backbone: Kimah in Job and Amos
- Greek Seven Sisters vs Talmud Kimah
- Related on this site
- FAQ
In my research into sky lore on this site, I keep coming back to one Hebrew name: Kimah, the Pleiades in the Talmud. Greek tellings talk about Seven Sisters and seasonal calendars. The Talmud does something sharper. It names Kimah, weighs it against Orion (Kesil), and, in the Flood stories, says the Holy One removed two stars from Pleiades and brought the waters down.
This page stays with those Talmud passages. I use short verbatim lines from Sefaria (William Davidson Talmud; JPS for the Bible verses), not loose paraphrases. For wider Pleiadian folklore on this site, see the soft links below. That material does not rewrite these cites.
About the sources
I am working from the Babylonian Talmud as presented on Sefaria, mainly Berakhot, Rosh Hashanah, and Bava Metzia, plus the biblical Kimah verses in Job and Amos. Where the live page only paraphrased, I replace that with the short quotes below and keep them intact.
On this site, related sky pages include Stars and constellations in the Old Testament. Books that touch Pleiadian lore more broadly sit in Books about Atlantis (for example Bringers of the Dawn). This article does not import channeling claims into the Talmud text.
What is Kimah? Naming in Berakhot 58b
The Talmud asks why Pleiades is called Kimah. Shmuel’s answer ties the name to a mass of stars:
What is Pleiades [Kima]? Why is it called by that name? Shmuel said: Because it is approximately a hundred [keme’a] stars, as that is the number of stars in that constellation; some say that they are concentrated and some say that they are dispersed.
That is the naming beat I want under the phrase Pleiades in the Talmud: Kimah as a crowded cluster, not only a Greek myth label.
Kimah and Kesil: cold and heat
The same stretch of Berakhot deals with Job and Amos disagreeing on whether Orion or Pleiades is named first. The Gemara’s resolution is climatic balance:
Were it not for Orion’s heat, the universe could not exist because of the cold of Pleiades; and conversely, were it not for the cold of Pleiades, the universe could not exist because of the heat of Orion.
So Kimah is not only a night-sky picture. In this account it helps keep the world livable, set against Kesil. I map that Pleiades-Orion pairing across cultures on Pleiades and Orion, including a Talmud/Kimah row; this page stays with the Talmud cites themselves.
The Flood: two stars taken from Pleiades (Berakhot 59a)
The unique beat for this page is the Flood story with two stars removed from Pleiades. Berakhot 59a is fuller than a short Rosh Hashanah note alone:
When the Holy One, Blessed be He, sought to bring a flood into the world, He took two stars from Pleiades and brought the flood upon the world. And afterward, when He wished to fill the void, He took two stars from Ursa Major and filled the void with them. Consequently, the constellation of Ursa Major attempts to persuade Pleiades, seeking to get its stars back.
The same discussion turns to Ayish (often linked with Ursa Major / “the Bear”) and the idea that a pit cannot be filled with its own earth, and that a prosecutor cannot become an advocate. Job 38:32 is read toward consolation and future restoration (“Or can you guide [tanhem] Ursa Major with her sons?”). I keep that as the emotional and theological frame around the two-star Flood image: removal, void, and a later filling from another constellation that still “wants its children back.”
Rosh Hashanah 11b-12a: second witness for the two stars
Rosh Hashanah also says two stars were removed from Kima when the Flood came. The sages disagree on the month, not on the act.
R. Yehoshua (Iyyar):
…He caused the constellation of Kima to rise during the day and He removed two stars from Kima, and in this way He brought a flood to the world.
R. Eliezer (Marheshvan, continuing on 12a):
…He caused the constellation of Kima to rise during the day, and He removed two stars from it and He brought a flood to the world.
I read RH as a second witness beside Berakhot 59a, not as the only Flood cite. Together they lock the image: Kimah rises, two stars are taken, the waters come.
On this site the same Talmud two-star Flood image already appears in flood research notes. See Was Nuh one of the last inheritors of advanced knowledge before the flood, and for celestial warning around Noah/Nuh see Was Noah (Nuh) aware of the flood long before it happened. Those pages keep the wider flood story; this one owns the Kimah wording.
When Kimah stands overhead (Bava Metzia 106b)
The live page once said this marked the onset of the rainy season. That paraphrase is wrong. Rav Pappa’s line is about the end of planting time, when sharecroppers come in and Kimah is overhead, roughly in Shevat:
Rav Pappa said: Until such time that the sharecroppers come in from the field and the stars of Pleiades are stationed over their heads, which occurs roughly during the month of Shevat.
So Kimah also works as a practical calendar marker in the Talmud, not only as Flood mythology.
Scripture backbone: Kimah in Job and Amos
Hebrew Kimah appears in Job 9:9, Job 38:31-32, and Amos 5:8, where JPS renders Pleiades (with Bear / Orion beside it). Those verses are the backbone the Talmud is arguing with. For a wider Old Testament sky map on this site, see Stars and constellations in the Old Testament.
Links: Job 9:9, Job 38:31-32, Amos 5:8.
Greek Seven Sisters vs Talmud Kimah
Most search results for Pleiades lean on Greek Seven Sisters lore and seasonal folklore. That is fine as culture. For Pleiades in the Talmud, I stay with Kimah: naming, climate balance, Flood two stars, and the planting-sky marker. The Pleiadians is the soft foil for Seven Sisters / calendar mythology so this page stays distinct. I do not fold channeling Pleiadian claims into these Talmud quotes.
Related on this site
These supporting pages share Kimah, Pleiades, Flood/Noah, or Orion/Kesil entities (content URLs, not tag archives):
- Stars and constellations in the Old Testament: Job and Amos Kimah verses the Talmud argues with.
- Pleiades and Orion: cultural Pleiades-Orion table with a Talmud/Kimah row.
- Was Nuh one of the last inheritors of advanced knowledge before the flood: already cites Talmud two stars from Kimah.
- Was Noah (Nuh) aware of the flood long before it happened: celestial-warning / Kimah-Pleiades flood reading.
- The Pleiadians: Seven Sisters foil; keep Talmud cites separate.
FAQ
What does the Talmud say about the Pleiades?
It calls them Kimah, explains the name, balances Kimah’s cold with Orion’s heat (Berakhot 58b), ties the Flood to two stars taken from Kimah (Berakhot 59a; Rosh Hashanah 11b-12a), and uses Kimah overhead as a planting-season marker (Bava Metzia 106b).
Why were two stars taken from the Pleiades in the Flood story?
Berakhot 59a and Rosh Hashanah 11b-12a say the Holy One removed two stars from Kimah and brought the flood. Berakhot 59a adds that the void was later filled with two stars from Ursa Major, which then seeks to get them back.
Is Kimah the same as the Pleiades?
In traditional Talmud study and in Sefaria’s William Davidson English, Kimah is rendered as Pleiades. Some modern papers debate the identity. I follow the traditional/Sefaria reading on this page; I do not make that debate the main answer.
When is Kimah “over their heads” in Bava Metzia?
Rav Pappa ties it to sharecroppers coming in from the field with Pleiades stationed overhead, roughly in Shevat. It marks the end of that planting window, not a vague “start of the rainy season.”
For the wider human timeline that places floods, skies, and lost ages on one map, see the Drums of Atlantis timelines.
